Wealthy Developer Wants a ‘Do-Over’ at Taxpayers’ Expense

PRESS RELEASE

FROM: Jeff Rogers
Chair, Pima County Democratic Party
January 7, 2010



One man's grudge would force voters back to the polls for yet another election because he didn't like the results of the last one.


Real estate speculator Humberto Lopez has pulled petitions and will pay for the signatures to force a recall election upon the city of Tucson. His targets are Council Member Karin Uhlich, re-elected just two months ago, and Council Member Regina Romero and Mayor Bob Walkup, who would both face re-election a year after winning the proposed recall election.

The recall is even more bizarre because Uhlich and Romero would run in "ward only" elections after a change last year in state law¹. Both won their wards overwhelmingly. Walkup would still have to face a city-wide special election.

"Mr. Lopez's personal dealings with the City Council have clouded his judgment," said Pima County Democratic Party Chair Jeff Rogers. "One man representing narrow special interests should not keep sending voters back to the polls, if those voters don't deliver the result he likes."

Rogers also wondered if, since newly elected council members are fair game, perhaps Republican incumbent Steve Kozachik would be up for facing all of those Ward 6 Democrats who are unhappy with November’s results. Kozachik won narrowly in a city-wide election last year but lost his own ward in a landslide.

"This is nonsense. The voters would be forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a pair of elections and the council has done nothing so detrimental to warrant recall," Rogers said.

"Mr. Lopez stood shoulder-to shoulder with us against Prop 200 two months ago because he knew that it was wrong for a well-financed, narrow special interest to buy an election. But now it appears that Mr. Lopez wants to do just that.

A recall and special election would only serve to distract the council from the governing required to solve the same fiscal crisis every other city in America is coping with. Election time is over. It's time to govern."

¹A.R.S. 19-201 & A.R.S. 9-821.01 C

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